


The Fall

by AmberTravie



Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Set during S1 E7 - The Asylum, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 19:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16919172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberTravie/pseuds/AmberTravie
Summary: Dick Grayson's persona falls apart and he has no idea how to put it back together.





	The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! The flow of this piece might seem awkward at first but I've never really delved into writing fanfiction like this so it's just some experimental fun. Feedback is appreciated!
> 
> Also made a Titans vid, though it's completely separate from this work, despite also being a character study of its own caliber. Check that out here if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGjhuWah4m4

**The Fall  
** **Part I**

* * *

 

Dick Grayson had been running for a long time. He was so very tired of running.

His life ended the day the Flying Graysons stepped foot into Gotham. Every hope he had dreamt of the future, every smile his parents sent his way – they vanished like the chalk dust on his hands. They vanished when he couldn’t reach them – his mother slipped right through his fingers.

He dealt with that guilt for a long time. The only thing that kept him going was that it was no accident. It was murder, and it was one he was going to see through until the end. Cold case or not.

 _“You can’t keep running away like that–”_  
_“I’m not running away. I’m searching.”_  
_“For what?”_  
_“Answers.”_  
_“Answers for what?”_  
_“To who killed my parents.”_  
_“The police are doing their best–”_  
_“No! Not the police. I have to be the one that finds them.”_  
_“Why?”_  
_“So I can kill them.”_

Bruce Wayne was supposed to save him. This was a man who had lived through the death of his parents and overcame it all. Became the face of Gotham’s wealth, and yet…

Bruce Wayne was no savior.

Dick ran away from his parents’ murder right into Batman’s arms. Dick was thankful to Bruce and he loved him like a father. But Bruce Wayne was chasing death, and all Dick ever did was want to escape. He wanted to fly free of the deceased that were holding him down. Running to Bruce meant chasing his parents’ killer. And Dick _wanted_ to find the murderer. He wanted to do more than find him – _he wanted to tear Tony Zucco limb from limb and leave him for the unrecognizable dead_. A closed casket, like his parents’ funeral. That man deserved no less; no face to look at one last time. No goodbye.

Dick let Tony Zucco die. He didn’t regret it. (He did regret the way he _enjoyed_ it.)

He knew he had a nasty temper. It was something that constantly writhed under his skin. He had never let it go before – never let it breathe from the open air, to taste blood and fear. It had grown relentless with his parents’ death – he was so _angry_.

Bruce Wayne had an outlet in the streets of Gotham when he put on his cowl. He had a way to deal with the pain and the darkness. Even if that moral code held him at bay – that one that made him more than another villain wreaking havoc. He thought it was the same outlet Dick needed. (It was. It was too _right_.) Dick got to fly in his mother’s colours, soaring through the night. There was a thrill in _falling_ – it was more exhilarating than any act he’d preformed at the circus. It was more _dangerous_.

Heights should have scared him after everything that happened, but he still relished in every jump. He learned to treat gravity as a friend, even though it doomed his parents. Gravity was a constant – they knew how to manipulate its momentum as well as he did. He knew he parents would not blame the fall. They would blame the man who poured acid on the rope.

And gravity became his friend in turn. It made grown men cry as he dangled them from rooftops, pleading their innocence even in the face of their guilt. Every time he leapt, he trusted it to guide his motion exactly where he needed to go. Alongside Batman, Robin got to fly.

_"Wouldn’t you rather have your own name? Like sparrow or blue jay for Jason?”_

_"Fuck no. The whole point is being Robin. Batman needs Robin. Why do you think he makes us wear those lame colours? Cause we’re drawing fire. Look over here, assholes. Then boom. The bat lands and starts trashing ass.”_

That wasn’t the purpose of Robin at all. Robin was his mother’s name for a son who reached to the stars. Robin represented all the colours the Graysons wore as they gracefully glided from one trapeze to the next. Robin was _his_.

 

“What’s wrong with him?”

“They must have given him drugs.”

“They may have broken him, Rachel. They do that here.”

 

Broken. He has been broken for his entire life. His mask, his suit – they were the pieces that held him together. He was a façade for the man he knew he should have become. Instead, he was a shell for that terrible, _strangling_ anger. It pulsed in his veins, more furiously with every heart beat.

He wanted to give Robin up. He really did. Yet he kept coming back to it, like a drug – like an addict. He was addicted to his own fury and to the pain he could cause. Upholding justice was important. But it was _serving_ justice that Dick craved within his very bones. There was sick pleasure in the way his fists ached after a night of beating criminals to a bloody pulp. It was horribly gratifying when he had to wash the blood from his suit. He collected every birdarang, even if he had to peel them from flesh. Washing away the blood reminded him that he was _alive_. Being alive meant that he could change the future for those currently living it. He could make the world a better place, one step at a time. He might be a monster that sought out destruction, but he could try to do good with it.

His temper was never satiated. He fought to keep it at bay. He was no murderer, even if he was atrociously violent and more than a little messed up. He told himself that he _would not kill_. It only ever made him _angrier_.

 

“Dick, it’s me. I need you to hear me. You are stronger than them, you’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. Now we have to get out of here. We can’t do that without you. You promised! You promised you’d never leave me. You promised.”

           

Someone was calling to him. Someone needed him. No one had needed him in a long time – for as long as he could remember. He was always giving, in his own weird way. He was always trying to help others. He didn’t need to be asked, or even thanked. He did it to be better. He wanted the world to be better than him.

But it was kind of nice. To be wanted. (Even when his insides were tearing him apart – with his mind telling him to love and his body telling him to hate. He wanted to help. He wanted to _hurt_.)

 

He blinked, and his life snapped back into focus.

“Yeah. I guess I did.”

There was a face hovering above him – Rachel. Gar. Another woman. _Where was Kory_? He remembered the restraints and went to test them, but they were already gone, and Gar was helping him up. He stumbled to his feet. _Where was Kory_?

His vision was swimming. Maybe it was just dark – but the world was spinning, his head was pounding and all he could seem to think about was the fact that he wasn’t wearing his mask.

That vanished when he saw the way they were _touching_ her, poking and prodding her like some _fucking_ experiment. He couldn’t breathe – his world was red.

“Watch the door,” he sneered as he ground his teeth. A part of his brain was screaming at him that he wasn’t Robin. It didn’t matter. He didn’t think as he viciously brought the scientists to their knees. He didn’t hesitate as he slammed his foot into a man’s throat. (He found that he didn’t care.) All he could see was Kory, _strapped down_.

She was not okay now, and she probably wouldn’t be for a while. But he had to ask. He had to make sure. He had to hear her voice, he needed something to _ground_ him.

“Fuck no.”

He sighed. For a moment, his boiling blood cooled. He helped her off the table.

There were guards in the halls. He didn’t even glance at the rest of the team. He simple strode forward and dispatched them with as little exertion as was required. He didn’t know how much strength he had left. He didn’t know what it would take before he crashed with all these drugs burning up in his system. They were almost out.

His head was pounding, but even so he knew something was wrong. The alarms were blaring – why weren’t there _more_ guards? Sure, he’d taken out quite a bunch, but they were always dispersed, looking just as flustered as he felt. There must be something he was missing–

Voices. Three, no six. More than that – the way the hall echoed made it hard to tell. They wrapped around the bend and there they were – maybe a dozen guards running down the hall towards them, blocking the only way out.

Something hitched in his chest. A sort of dread, he thought at first, before it truly sank in. Anticipation. He’d been anticipating this fight. He saw Rachel stumble and glance towards him. He knew she could handle this if he couldn’t, but her mother was there, and Dick could taste the fear radiating off each of them.

(Something else he’d learned patrolling the dark Gotham streets. How to sense fear. How to inspire it.)

He was not Robin right now. There was no mask to hide behind – no suit to keep the pieces of his persona together. Nothing to keep his anger contained. He was Dick Grayson, bared to the world, and the world was about to see his brutality. His _team_ was about to see his brutality. (Who was he kidding – they knew he was brutal. Everyone saw the way he tore into the Family, no remorse as he splattered their blood across the pavement. He was only hiding from himself.)

“I got this.”

He didn’t miss the relief that briefly shone across Rachel’s face. He glimpsed the bitter grin that Kory directed his way. Gar held a stifled sort of excitement in his eyes, but they were also filled with terror. They were all scared. Sometimes there was no time to be scared.

Though for once, Dick was not. He had nothing left to hide and nothing to hide behind. He tore a metal shank from the piping to his left. With the comforting weight sitting in his right hand, he finally glanced towards those standing between him and freedom. He would not be caged. He had something to fight for.

He closed his eyes and tightened his grip. The cool metal bit into Dick’s skin. He may not like it, but the darkness was his. Bruce had taught him to navigate that darkness. Bruce may have not recognized Dick’s temper, but that too was a part of him that simply needed training. Any reliable weapon had to be broken in.

He opened his eyes and swung. He didn’t flinch at the groans nor did he cringe at their screams. He pivoted a foot, spun and slammed the shaft into flesh. One of the guards brought out a taser. Electricity flared through his muscles. He forced his hand not to twitch as he locked the makeshift weapon in his grip. Tasers were nothing new. Batman had to ensure his Robin was prepared before taking him out onto the maniacal Gotham streets.

It just managed to fuel Dick’s temper. He brought his free hand towards the man’s head and yanked him by the hair before shoving him towards the wall with more force than he usually risked applying. He realized that at the moment, he stopped caring about seriously hurting people. He wondered if it was because of his drug-induced trance. He found he didn’t care. His blood _sung_.

He stopped evaluating and just started attacking. He didn’t calculate precise points of impact that would bring people down with minimal effort. He swung the shank until blood splattered the walls. He was _furious_. It flooded his veins like adrenaline. He shouted to ease some of the tension building in his bones. He couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. He couldn’t get his muscles to relax, but he didn’t have to. There were more men, not hesitating as they took in his bloody and disheveled appearance. They simply grimaced and marched forward, ready to attack, ready to _fall_.

Dick wouldn’t realize until much later than this was all apart of a plan. Every action was filled with a resigned purpose. He would blame the drugs clogging his system, but it would be a lie. He’d been trained to observe and retain information while drugged. He’d been taught to fight through the haze that would cripple any other man. The Bat wouldn’t leave his Robin unprepared on those maniacal Gotham streets.

Some people just love to fall.

_“You don’t understand, Dawn. You don’t know what I’ve become.”_  
_“What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘what you’ve become’?”_

_“You saw what he did. He’s a fucking psychopath.”_

_“You must lie a lot. You’re good at it.”_

_“I didn’t know you had it in you.”_  
_“What?”_  
_“The way you attacked that man. It’s none of my business but if you don’t unbury whatever it is that’s going on, you’re going to explode.”_

_“You seem like a nice guy, but I’m not so sure.”_  
_“I went through something when I was a kid.”_  
_“So this is all about you?”_  
_“I don’t want her to make the same mistakes I did. Trusting the wrong people.”_

_“We all did our thing. What’s your thing man?”_  
_“I can keep you alive.”_

_“All those years Bruce was helping me, he was turning me into a weapon. His weapon. You can’t unlearn what he teaches you and you can’t control it. Believe me. The price is too high.”_

           

Strips of kevlar, curled and blackened, were all that was left of the only life he had ever known. He wasn’t alone now, but he might as well have been. There was no longer a mask to save him from himself. Nothing to keep the horrors contained. They were free. He was free.

He didn’t know if he liked being free. Not when there was nothing to contain the monster he’d become. Giving up Robin meant he had to give up this life. If there was no way to restrain the anger it was better left bottled away into a place that would never surface. Maybe if he locked it up tight enough it would never get another chance to rear its head. He didn’t want to know what Bruce would think of him right now. He didn’t want to think about that disapproving scowl.

 _“What were you thinking?”_  
_“He killed my parents!”_  
_“So you get to kill him? Is that right?”_  
_“I didn’t–”_  
_“Oh but you did. He is dead, Dick.”_  
_“I don’t regret it.”_  
_“Excuse me?”_  
_“You heard me. He deserved it.”_  
_“Those are some dangerous words. Are you prepared to follow them through?”_  
_“What?”_  
_“You say he deserved it. What quantifies deserving? Killing once? Killing twice? Killing on purpose, by accident? Life is a very fine line, and as soon as you cross it, rules mean nothing.”_  
_“He took everything from me.”_  
_“Really? What do you call this house, this suit, this responsibility that you have now then? Am I nothing to you?”_  
_“You know what I meant!”_  
_“What does he have left now? Less than nothing. He is gone, and you have taken everything from his family. You have committed the same crime that was done to you.”_  
_“I–”_  
_“You’re a better man than this, Dick.”_  
_“Am I? I would do it again.”_  
_“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We all make mistakes. This is one you will have to bear for the rest of your life.”_  
_“What if you’re wrong?”_  
_“What are you saying?”_  
_“…I’m so angry all the time, I don’t know what to do–”_  
_“Oh, chum. This is my fault. You’re not me, but I treated you like you were.”_  
_“Bruce?”_  
_“I thought this would be enough. I thought that doing this – doing some good by letting out some bad – would help you like it helped me.”_  
_“It did help me!”_  
_“No, it didn’t, chum. It hurt you.”_


End file.
